1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally directed to monitoring managed resources and more particularly directed to a system and methodology for relaying broadcast notifications between the management server and a resource management client using a Java Management Extensions (JMX) message bridge.
2. Background Art
Conventional resource monitoring and management tools use notifications to indicate when resource errors occur, but lack an architecture that allows user interface (UI) elements to subscribe to broadcast notifications that users are interested in. SYBASE™ Control Center (SCC) is an example of a currently available resource monitoring and management solution with a notification component. SCC consists of a server with a web browser based monitoring and administration tool and a user interface (UI). SCC is a web-based management tool, which provides an integrated set of management, monitoring, and configuration capabilities across multiple products. SCC can be used to monitor SYBASE™ products through a standard Internet web browser with the ADOBE™ Flash player plug-in.
The ADOBE™ Flash player, the ADOBE™ FLEX™ software development kit, and and BlazeDS server-based Java web messaging components provide significant advances in client server technology. However, using these components with a JMX server requires an ability to relate JMX managed beans (JMX MBeans) with their counterparts as presented within a client application running in a web browser.
Data processing systems typically employ multiple, geographically distributed resources that must be monitored and managed remotely. These managed resources can include servers running multiple, disparate platforms and operating systems (OSs) which in turn host multiple processes and enterprise applications. System administrators, database administrators (DBAs), and other users need to be alerted or notified of events occurring on managed resources without having to poll or manually check each resource being monitored. System administrators and other users also need to be notified of events occurring on managed resources when they are away from the office and not co-located with the managed resources. For example, users need to be able to monitor managed resources off-hours from mobile computing devices, home computers, pagers and other remote computing devices.
Accordingly, what is desired is a means of monitoring managed resources by broadcasting notifications triggered by events occurring on managed resources to users who do not have direct access to the managed resources. What is further desired are methods, systems, and computer program products for enabling a user, using a client application such as, but not limited to, Flash in a web browser and Flash ADOBE™ Integrated Runtime (AIR™), to subscribe to and receive notifications related to message topics associated with managed resources they wish to monitor. What is further needed is a means for relaying messages related to notifications to a client application configured to run Flash or Flash Lite.
Data push techniques are often employed for communications within enterprise style Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). In Internet-based communication using data push techniques, a request for a given transaction is initiated by a publisher or central server. As data push techniques route data from servers to clients, this communication technique can be inefficient in cases where a client does not require data being pushed from the central server. With data push techniques, servers send updates as they occur and not when they are requested or required by clients. However, using a push technology to communicate the status of managed resources to resource management clients can unnecessarily burden the managed resources and increase their load by requiring them to continually push communications to resource management clients. Conversely, if a pull communication technique is used by resource management clients to pull the current status from managed resources, the clients may not be aware of status changes for managed resources unless the clients periodically initiate communications.
Accordingly, what is further needed are methods, systems, and computer program products for resource monitoring which provide a message bridge between notifications triggered by events on managed resources, wherein the notifications are pushed from an intermediate messaging server such as, but not limited to, a BlazeDS message service, and wherein the message bridge also employs push technology that engages resource management clients to selectively receive data updates in the form of broadcast notifications, and then pushes updated data to a resource management client based on subscriptions established by the client. In this way, the message bridge reduces the load on managed resources while simultaneously providing resource management clients with updated status of managed resources being monitored at the client.